OCR A Level Theorists (Child Language Aquisition CLA, language and gender, language and power, language and technology and language change
- Created by: phoebemorley1
- Created on: 02-07-17 19:23
English Language Theorists OCR AS/A Level
Language and Gender
David Crystal
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Language is never neutral it reflects the cultural values of society.
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If we live in a patriarchal society then this will be reflected in our language.
Deborah Tannen
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'You Just Don't Understand'- written in 1990.
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Language use between men and women isn't related to inferiority and superiority.
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The different language use is because men and women belong to different groups with different norms and expectations.
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Believes that men use 'report' talk and women use 'rapport' talk
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Report vs Rapport
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Status Support
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Information Feeling
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Orders Proposals
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Conflict Compromise
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Independance Intimacy
Zimmerman & West
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A study conducted in 1975.
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Found that 96% of interruption in mixed sex conversations caused by men.
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The study is notoriously unreliable because of a small sample size.
Dale Spender
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Wrote ‘Man-made language’ (1980)
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Argues that language is the shaper of ideas and sustains patriarchal power.
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Language we use is shaped by the values of men (indicates the influence of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.)
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A counter argument is that, if language is really man made then how can Spender use language to attack this system.
Peter Trudgill
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Suggests that female speech shows a desire for ‘overt prestige’.
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Over prestige is prestige gained from using language and behaviour that is considered more ‘socially acceptable’, using more standard forms.
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Whereas male speech shows a desire for ‘covert prestige’ or prestige gained from socially less acceptable language or behaviour. E.g. not using standard forms.
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Standard forms= Standard English
Deborah Cameron
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Wrote the book ‘The Myth of Mars and Venus’ (2007).
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She suggests that there is as much variation within the language use of each gender as between men and women.
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Challenges any attempts at binary classification and argues that we need to start thinking about gender in more complex ways.
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Women held to higher standards of ‘verbal hygiene’.
Janet Hyde
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She is an exponent of Gender Similarities hypothesis (2005).
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Conducted a meta-analysis of language and gender.
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A meta-analysis is a study of studies.
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Concludes that there are very few differences between how men and women use language.
Julia Stanley
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(1975)
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Performed a linguistic analysis of terms for sexually promiscuous men and women.
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She found that there are 20 words from a promiscuous man and 220 for women.
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There are significantly more taboo lexical items for women.
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Refers to how women exist in a ‘negative semantic space’.
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For example, on TV the words ‘f**k’ and ‘s**t’ are frequently heard but the word ‘c**t’ is very rarely heard. Is this because it carries more taboo because it relates to women.
Norman Fairclough
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Language is ‘the primary domain of ideology’.
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It is the main way societies ideas of gender and power and expressed.
Robin Lakoff
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‘Language and Women’s Place’ (1975)
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Argues that male language…
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